In the Shadows
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: "I'm not calling the cops, nothing happened," Casey insisted, "I'm fine!" But Kelly Severide knew that that wasn't true, he'd seen what had happened to Matt, but he had no idea how to help his friend.
1. Chapter 1

In the Shadows

Kelly had pulled his car up outside Molly's where he'd planned to meet Casey for a few drinks. In fact Casey had called him earlier to let him know he'd already arrived. And Casey's truck was in the parking lot, but as soon as Kelly got out of his car and stepped out into the freezing night air of late autumn, he realized that something was wrong.

The driver side door on Casey's pickup was wide open.

"Casey?" he went over to the truck and looked around. The lights were out, he took his phone out and used it as a flashlight to shine into the truck and see if Casey was there. He was not. Nothing in the truck appeared to have been tampered with, nothing obvious was missing, but the keys were gone from the ignition and Casey wasn't there.

He wasn't sure what to do. He closed the door so the battery didn't run down, and he went into Molly's and was immediate hit with bright lights, warm air and music blasting from the jukebox. It was a fairly busy night, which by Molly's standards wasn't saying much, but more active than most nights.

"Hey, Herrmann!" he hollered to be heard over the music and the people chattering, "Is Casey here?"

Herrmann was drying a glass and shook his head, "Ain't seen him tonight, Severide. Sorry."

Kelly opened his mouth to tell Herrmann about Casey's truck outside but decided it would only waste time. He quickly left the bar and looked around, and tried to figure out where Casey would've gone. He tried dialing Casey's phone, it rang a few times, then went straight to voicemail. But...

The night air was filled with an assortment of sounds, distant cars a few blocks away, the wind blowing that chilled him to the bones, a lone siren somewhere far off...Kelly dialed the number again, but didn't put the phone to his ear.

Somewhere, somewhere nearby he could hear a faint ring tone. It could've been coincidence, but he wasn't taking his chances.

"Casey?" he called out as he followed the sound to the corner of the block. There was no answer. He looked around, watching for any signs of human life, but at this hour there didn't seem to be anybody out.

"Casey, are you here?" he called. "Are you okay?"

There was nothing at first. Then he heard something. He wasn't sure what, it was muffled, but it sounded like someone, more than one person. He followed the sounds to the alley behind the block, the noises got louder and he could distinctly make out two voices, but he couldn't understand anything that was being said. There were noises, familiar sounds of somebody being hit, of a body hitting the pavement. Kelly moved faster and at the end of the alley he looked, and could see the street lights casting a vague illumination into the alleyway. There were three figures half shadowed by the dark. Two were standing and were taking turns kicking the one sprawled on the ground, which only emitted pained moans in response, and barely even tried to defend itself from the blows. Kelly inched his way down the alley to find out what was going on and who was involved, as he did he could see the figures standing under one of the lights better. Two black men stood in the middle of the alley, he couldn't make out any actual features, especially since they were both wearing heavy coats, but he could make out their skin color despite the bad lighting, and when they spoke he knew they were black. And there was no doubt in his mind that the figure laying face down in the alley was Casey. One of the men raised his foot and stomped his boot against Casey's neck, he groaned but otherwise didn't respond.

Kelly had opened his mouth to yell at them and let them know that there was a witness to the assault, and a second person to deal with, and to draw their attention away from Casey. But before he could get a sound out, he saw one of the men grab Casey by his hair and jerk him up to his knees. Casey let out a series of incoherent sounds of pain but no words came out. The man jerking him by his hair snapped his head almost completely back as the second man got in front of Casey, towering over him, and Severide saw the man's hands sliding down to the waistband of his pants and started to open them.

"HEY!"

Kelly scarcely even recognized the voice as his own, but it rang out through the whole alley, and when the two men saw that they weren't alone, they took off running the other way. Casey slumped forward on his knees and collapsed on the ground.

"Casey!" Kelly ran towards his best friend, scared to death of what he was going to find, and hoping he hadn't gotten there too late.

"Casey!" Kelly skidded to a stop and stood over Matt, and he felt sick. From the streetlight shining down on them, he saw Casey's upper body sprawled across the ground but his legs were bent at the knees and pressed tight together. His coat was gone, his clothes were disheveled, there was blood in his hair and trickling down from his nose and mouth, his whole body was shaking uncontrollably.

"Casey, oh my God." Kelly fell down on his knees beside Casey and cautiously reached a hand out and placed it on Casey's back.

The blonde firefighter tried lifting his upper body off the ground, he planted his hands against the ground and tried to push himself up. Shaking and moaning the whole time, he quickly got himself to his feet, albeit shakily. Now that he was out of immediate danger he seemed intent on trying to compose himself and present some illusion of being in control and 'alright'.

"Casey, what happened?" Kelly asked as he stood up.

"Nothing," Casey was quick to insist. "Nothing, I'm fine."

"No you're not, what happened? Who were those guys?" Kelly asked.

"I don't want to talk about it!" Casey insisted.

"Casey, we need to get you to the hospital."

"No," Casey shook his head, "I'm fine."

"You're not fine."

"Just a little banged up, it's nothing," Casey tried to sound convincing, but he couldn't stop shaking.

"Casey, where's your coat?"

Casey opened his mouth to answer, then stopped, and instead he folded his arms tight against his chest and looked to the ground.

"Did they rob you?" Kelly asked. He looked down and noticed that Casey's jean pockets were flat, no phone, no wallet, no keys. "Oh my God, Casey."

"I'm alright, Severide!" Casey told him. "Just drop it."

"What happened?" Kelly asked.

"I don't know!"

Everything Casey had just tried to assert as being somehow in control of what was going on and the situation not as bad as Kelly made it out to be, went out the window as those words came out far louder, and more emotional, than Casey had clearly planned them to be. His voice was about to start breaking, and as soon as he realized it, he clamped his mouth shut and resumed holding himself stiff and looking towards the ground.

Kelly unzipped his coat and draped it over Casey's body, "Here, put this on."

Casey held his arms tight against his chest and tried to clench his teeth so they wouldn't chatter as he weakly replied, "I don't want it-"

"Come on, Casey, let's get you out of here," Kelly told him as he zipped the coat up.

Something shone in the streetlight, Kelly stepped past Matt and reached through the fallen leaves and trash, and pulled out Matt's keyring. A few feet away from that he saw something familiar. It was Casey's wallet. He grabbed it up. The cash was gone and if he'd been carrying any credit or debit cards, they got that too...but his driver's license was still there, so was his lieutenant's badge.

He turned back to Casey, who looked like he was trying to curl himself up in the coat, either to get warm, or wishing he could crawl under a rock and not have to go through any of this. He reluctantly looked at Kelly, and explained, "They ambushed me when I got out of the truck...dragged me over here...took everything I had, then they saw the badge and thought I was a cop. They were...gonna...kill me."

The words got lower with every syllable, until the last two words were barely understandable at all. Kelly felt his heart drop to his stomach. That might have been their intention, but that wasn't _all_ they were going to do to Matt. Kelly knew what he'd seen with his own eyes. They were going to rape him, Kelly felt his stomach turn and twist as it fully dawned on him that they were going to orally rape him. He couldn't even stomach any thought of what was going to come past that, it was hard enough to keep everything down just going by what he'd been a witness to.

Kelly reached in his pocket and took out his phone and started to dial the police when Casey ambushed him and knocked his phone out of his hand.

"What're you doing? We gotta call the cops," Kelly pointed out.

"No," Casey replied, "Nothing happened, I'm not calling the cops...I'm fine."

But Kelly knew that wasn't true. He'd _seen_ what happened, he'd _seen_ what they were doing to him, what they were _going_ to do. There was no way anybody _could_ be fine after that. But in this moment he honestly had no idea what he was supposed to do to help his friend.

"I don't want everyone at Molly's finding out, Kelly," Casey said, struggling to keep his voice strong.

Kelly nodded but didn't answer. "Come on, let's get out of here."

He didn't trust Casey to drive, he'd take him him in his car and tomorrow they'd come back and get his truck. He got Casey in his car, got the heat on full blast and drove them out of there.

"Where're we going?" Casey asked as he looked out the passenger side window and realized they weren't going back to his apartment.

"You're staying with me tonight," Kelly told him.


	2. Chapter 2

Even with Kelly's coat and having the heat on the whole ride back, Casey was still chilled clear through and couldn't get warm. After Kelly briefly examined him, and was surprised to find that Casey didn't appear to be injured any worse than he was, he doctored up the cuts and bruises and got Casey settled on the couch wrapped up in a heavy blanket. Kelly finally exited the kitchen with two mugs of coffee in hand and gave one to Matt, who realized at the first sip that he'd taken the courtesy to pour some whiskey in it too.

"Thanks," he said as he gripped the mug in his hands to warm them up.

They sat in silence for a couple minutes before Kelly told him, "We need to call the cops."

Casey shook his head, "No, I'm not telling anybody about this. I don't want anyone finding out, Kelly."

"Casey, you were robbed, you were assaulted, you were...sexually assaulted, you could've been killed," Kelly told him.

"Yes," Casey nodded, "And if I report this, somebody finds out, leaks it to the public, every news network and all of social media is to show their pictures nonstop and insist they didn't do anything and I'm lying. We've seen it happen before, nobody cares about facts, nobody has an attention span long enough to wait for facts, they jump on the first thing that anybody says and accept it as the gospel truth. It'll be two poor young black men and a white racist firefighter creating this hoax to frame them. You know what will happen, Kelly, we see it all the time, especially given this city's own race relations in politics, everybody will jump on the opportunity to turn this around and make them the victims who did nothing wrong and were just minding their own business. People who know absolutely nothing about those two, who never even met them, will jump up and down swearing they are innocent and just being set up. And they will be only too happy to dig into my own history, my mom killing my dad, my run-in with Voight which was also turned around to make _me_ the criminal, the whole alderman stint, they'll make it look like a publicity ploy from an ex-politician who comes from a psychotic, violent family. And if they come after me, they'll come after everyone else at 51 and people will assume just because we all work together that everybody else knows about this and was in on it, at the very least, in the court of public opinion, everyone else will be guilty by mere association."

"I don't think anybody can argue Boden would be compliant in framing black men for crimes they didn't commit," Kelly felt a need to point out.

"It's happened before, you just watch, they would find a way," Casey said, "we'd never be able to get any work done, it'd be bricks through the windows and death threats nonstop, our cars being fire bombed, people stalking us everywhere we go, harassing us on calls while we're trying to save people, _nobody_ in the community would trust us anymore, we'd _all_ be made out to be a bunch of racists looking to ruin two young black men's lives who never did anything. And maybe as a bonus just to really stoke the coals, somebody will find pictures of them back when they were in school and air them on every news station, making it look like we're trying to railroad a couple of teenagers, we've seen that happen before too."

Casey's whole body shook as he wrapped the blanket tighter around himself and he told Kelly, "Nobody cares about what's true, it's what makes the best story, and everybody jumps on the bandwagon before the facts ever come out. We've seen that plenty of times, firsthand, when they blamed Cruz for for our trucks colliding only to find out after the damage was already done, that it was the other driver's fault, at his officer's command. When they arrested you for that hit and run only to find out somebody pistol whipped you, knocked you out and stole your car. No, nobody can know about this, Kelly, it's the only way to keep all of 51 from being burnt to the ground by a bunch of morons who blindly believe everything they see on the news and on social media. It's just not worth it, it's not worth what we would _all_ be put through. And in the end, after it was all said and done, assuming the cops ever _did_ find them, arrest them, the political pressure on the States Attorney would either result in all charges being dropped, or the jury hanging, deadlocking, or a full acquittal. Worst case scenario they'd get 2 weeks for probably a first time misdemeanor assault, and I would be the laughing stock of the city for thinking I ever had a chance in hell of getting justice. And the harassment wouldn't stop there, once something gets out on social media, it never goes away, people would _never_ forget what happened. I can't-I can't go through all that, and I can't put everyone else through it either."

For a minute Kelly just looked at Casey and he couldn't even speak. It was obvious that Casey had clearly given all of this far more thought in a short amount of time than Severide could ever have conceived of. A rarity for Casey he actually had put his own self-preservation on the line, but it also took the backseat to everybody else at 51 and what might happen to them through mere association with him if this went public, and backfired on them as Casey was predicting it would. He might risk his own life to do what was right but he wasn't willing to put the men he worked with in the same line of fire.

Kelly just shook his head, hopelessly. "It's not right, Casey."

"I know it's not," he replied, "but that's how it is. I'm _not_ reporting this. They got my money, my phone, my coat...it can all be replaced, I'm not endangering anybody's wellbeing over this."

Kelly came so close to asking Casey about his own wellbeing, but he knew it was a fight not worth having. Casey had made his mind up, and as much as Kelly didn't like it, he knew there wasn't anything he could do except support his best friend no matter what decision he made about it.

"Alright," he conceded, "I'm sorry."

Casey didn't say anything in response but he seemed to let go of the issue after that. He slowly drank the coffee and whiskey and to fill the silence, Kelly turned on the TV and scrolled through the channels until he found one playing 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents', not his go-to for a night of TV but he'd grown up on it and it was harmless enough entertainment to pass the time with. Casey put his mug down and leaned back against the couch and tightened the blanket around himself and wordlessly watched the old programs of murder and mayhem, and the two lieutenants passed the night in silence.

* * *

Kelly woke up sitting up on the couch with a stiff neck, he was cold, the TV was still on and the channel had switched over to infomercials. He reached for the remote to shut it off when he looked over and saw Casey was gone. The other side of the couch was vacant and the blanket was hastily crumpled over the cushions.

"Casey?" he looked around the room as he got to his feet. Apart from the TV, the apartment was quiet and dark. "Casey?"

He heard something. At first he wasn't sure what, or where, but he heard it again and traced it to the bathroom. He headed over to the closed door and through it could hear the muffled sound of quiet sobs.

"Casey?" Kelly whispered as he lightly rapped on the door. There was no response. Kelly reached for the doorknob, "Casey I'm coming in."

He slowly opened the door, the bathroom was almost pitch dark. The only light in there was from the charging stand for his electric razor, and that wasn't enough to see anything by. Kelly left the door open and was just barely able to make out the figure of Casey seated on the edge of the tub, slumped forward with his hands pressed between his knees and his head tilted down. As Kelly entered the room and padded over to the bathtub to sit down beside him, he heard the faint sobs escaping Casey, that he'd clearly tried so hard to fight back so nobody would hear him.

"Casey." Kelly couldn't think of anything else to say, he put his arm around Matt's back and pulled the blonde man against him as Casey's whole body started trembling as he still tried to stifle the sounds coming up from his throat. He pressed his head in the crook of Kelly's neck and held onto him. Kelly felt the spasms in his chest with every breath he heaved in.

They stayed that way for several minutes before Casey finally calmed down and pulled back from Kelly and sat up straight.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," he said, slowly regaining his voice. "This shouldn't bother me this much, nothing happened, they didn't-"

"That doesn't matter, Casey," Kelly told him, "they _tried_ to, that's all it takes to affect anyone."

He felt Casey's shoulder pressing against his and felt it tense up.

"All night I've tried to convince myself that it doesn't matter, because I wasn't...because they didn't actually..." Casey's breathing became a series of wheezes as he lost his ability to finish what he was trying to say.

"That doesn't make it less traumatizing, Matt, you know that," Kelly softly told him.

He felt Casey's knee vibrating against his.

"Why...why did they do it?" Casey asked, looking towards the floor again. "They had my coat, they had my phone, they had my money, they already had everything...why did they have to do _that_?"

Kelly reached over and pulled Casey against him again, the blonde man's head resting against the side of his chest as he consolingly held Casey in his arms.

"I don't know, buddy, I don't know, I'm sorry," was all he could think to say. He rubbed his hand up and down Casey's bicep and realized, "You're still cold."

"I know," Casey weakly replied.

Kelly thought for a minute, then he moved his hand from Casey's arm and patted his thigh and told him, "Okay, come on, get up."

The tone of Casey's voice told Kelly he was confused. "What're we doing?"

"I'm gonna put you in bed so you can warm up," Kelly told him as he stood up and grabbed Casey's hand and pulled him along.

"I don't want to put you out-"

"You're not, you take one side of the bed, I'll take the other," Kelly told him. "I'll buy you a new coat tomorrow."

Kelly led him to the bedroom, pulled down the covers on one side of the bed and got Casey settled in for the night and buried him under a sheet, the bedspread and a quilt. Then he went over to the other side, climbed in and pulled the covers up on himself as well.

"You warm enough?" Kelly asked, feeling the mattress shifting with Casey's weight as he moved around under the blankets.

Casey nodded, "Yeah, thanks, Kelly."

"Try to go to sleep," Kelly told him, "I promise you'll feel better tomorrow."

He hoped that come the morning he would be able to think of some way to help his friend.

Kelly had been half asleep when a sound woke him up that came from the other side of the bed. As hard as Casey tried not to be heard, Kelly was still able to pick up on the soft sobs coming from him. He grabbed Casey's arm and pulled him over to the other side of the bed and held him tight, letting his best friend know that he wasn't alone.


	3. Chapter 3

"Casey...Casey..."

"Hmm," Casey was somewhere between asleep and awake, and he wanted to go back to full sleep. Under him he felt soft sheets and above him he felt warm covers, and he felt contented, he didn't care what time it was, he wanted to stay there and sleep.

"Casey."

He felt a hand skim over his face and he absently slapped at it like a fly.

"Casey."

"Huh?" he finally opened his eyes and found himself in Severide's bed and saw Kelly laying five inches away from him. "Wha's'it?"

"Where'd you get your coat?"

"Huh?"

Suddenly, some of the events from last night started to come back to Casey, and it all started to fall in place.

"Where'd you get your coat?" Kelly repeated.

Casey closed his eyes and rubbed them with his balled up hands, "Walmart, why?"

However all Severide said to him was, "Sorry I got you up, you go back to sleep."

Casey heard the springs creak as Kelly's weight left the mattress, his eyes were already closed and he was halfway asleep again. The next time Kelly woke him up, Casey had no idea how much time had passed, but this time he noticed the room was a little brighter and he saw Kelly carrying a mug of hot coffee.

"Here, drink this."

"Thanks," Casey tiredly groaned as he sit up to take it.

"So...about your coat," Kelly said as he sat on the edge of the bed.

"What?" Casey had already forgotten whatever it was they'd talked about earlier.

"I forgot to get groceries yesterday, so since Walmart's already open, we can get you a new coat and while we're there I'll pick up some stuff for breakfast," Kelly told him.

It took Casey a couple minutes to put together what Kelly was saying, but finally he responded with a simple, albeit confused, "Okay."

"Do you need to get a shower first and freshen up?"

Casey downed the last of the coffee and shook his head, "I'm good." He pushed back the covers and moved to get up. "Let's go."

Kelly went over to the closet and dug through it until he found a heavy jacket and told Casey, "Wear this until we get your coat."

"It's not necessary, Kelly," Casey said, but it didn't stop him from slipping it on.

"It's cold this morning," Kelly told him. He left out the part where he knew Casey wasn't about to take Severide's only coat and leave him high and dry in the 30 degree morning weather. "I got the car warming up."

"Okay," Casey nodded, "let's go."

* * *

Casey shrugged his arms out of the coat and let it fall on the floor before he picked it up and put it back on the hanger.

"This one's no good either. Sorry," he said, feeling more and more frustrated with every coat he tried on. He'd already tried on five and he hadn't found one he wanted yet.

"It's okay, Casey," Kelly said.

"I don't mean to be a pain in the ass, I just don't like any of these," Casey said.

"I get it, but what're you looking for?" Severide asked.

Casey paused, and answered, "I want one like I had." He felt embarrassed by his answer, he sounded like a spoiled kid who didn't want to try something new, but he couldn't help it. He'd never realized just how attached he'd gotten to his coat, he never thought it would just be taken from him, he'd figured he'd wear it until it fell completely apart, like he did every single one before it.

Kelly nodded, "It's okay, I get it. We've got plenty of time, Casey, you keep looking and I'll go pick up the groceries."

"Okay," Casey said.

He picked up the coats he'd already tried on and hung them back on their respectable racks and started sorting through a carousel of them on another rack. So many different kinds of winter coats to pick from, and he couldn't find one he would actually wear. To top it all off he felt embarrassed that Kelly had to buy it for him. His cash was gone, fortunately he hadn't had his credit card or his ATM card in his wallet at the time; he'd just gotten a new wallet and was breaking it in first and loosening it up so he didn't have to pry his cards out to actually use them in the store, but they'd come straight here from Kelly's apartment so Casey didn't have access to them either. He'd started the day off feeling marginally better than last night, but as the morning wore on and everything came back to him, and the hard realities of the day after were starting to weigh on him, he wished he could just go home and crawl into bed and hide out from the whole world.

Willing himself to try again, he picked a long gray parka off the rack, at first glance it might work, he unzipped it and put it on and looked at himself in the mirror beside the shelves. He zipped it up and stuck his hands in the pockets and looked one way, and the other. Nope. He unzipped it and put it back on the hanger and back on the rack.

"Hey Casey!"

He turned at the sound of his name and saw Severide doubling back and saw he was carrying something in his hand. He held up a heavy black coat and asked Casey, "Is this it?"

Casey felt his eyes widen and he nodded as he recognized it as being exactly like his old one.

"It was on a clearance rack for $15, last one in your size," Kelly said as he held it out for Casey to take.

He did, and immediately slipped it on and zipped it up. Yes, this was the one, it felt exactly the same, he felt like a tiny piece of himself had been restored to him. He closed his eyes self consciously when he felt them starting to sting, there should be nothing emotional about buying a winter coat, but in that moment he felt like the weight of the world had been taken off his shoulders. For one brief minute, all felt right with the world.

He felt somebody squeezing him through the thick material and felt his face pressed against the collar of Severide's coat and picked up a whiff of his cologne and stale cigar smoke.

"Everything's going to be okay, Matt," he whispered in his ear as his hands patted Casey on the back in an almost drumming rhythm.

Casey pushed away self consciously and told Kelly as he looked him in the eyes, "Stop, people are gonna stare."

"it's 6 A.M., there's nobody here," Kelly told him.

"Except the people working here," Casey replied.

"Who cares?"

"I do," Casey answered as he took the coat off and put it back on the hanger and draped it over the cart.

"Okay," Kelly thought he understood, he knew that Casey was walking a fine line right now on what he was comfortable with and backed off. "Well now that we found it, let's get the food."

"Thanks, Kelly," Casey said.

"No problem."

* * *

"I still have to get a new phone," Casey told Kelly two days later when they were having lunch at a diner.

Kelly swallowed and about choked on his food, "You haven't gotten it yet? You were on shift all day yesterday without a cell phone?"

"I hate having to get a new one, I hate the whole process of getting caught up again" Casey said, "do you have any idea how many of them I've had to replace in the last few years?"

"Well," Kelly said, "maybe we should avoid the rush and just get a dozen of them to stock up."

"Not funny," Casey replied.

"So, you gonna get the same kind?" Kelly asked.

Casey shrugged, "I don't know."

The check came and Kelly paid for their lunch, they got up and were putting on their jackets to leave when somewhere outside there was an explosion of gunfire. The diner wasn't hit but everybody heard the commotion and people started screaming and some ducked under the tables, others flocked to the windows to see what was going on. It sounded like the shots were coming from just around the corner. And just as suddenly, they stopped.

"Call 911!" Kelly told somebody as he and Casey went to see what had happened and if they could help anybody who was wounded since it would take 10 minutes for Ambo to get there.

They ran around the corner and saw that whoever had fired the shots was already long gone, sprawled all over the street were half a dozen young black men, riddled with bullet holes, their blood spilling out on the street beneath them. Some of them had guns near their bodies, it looked like a turf war shooting where the rival gang was able to ambush them. The two lieutenants knelt down and started checking for pulses.

"Nothing," Kelly said.

"Here either," Casey dropped one man's wrist and moved on to the next one.

A loud gasp escaped his lips. Kelly noticed, and moved over to Casey, and looked down.

One of the victims was flat on his back with his eyes wide open, a MAC-10 right by his side. The one next to him was wearing a familiar black coat.

Kelly looked at Casey, whose eyes were widened to their limit, and was suddenly having trouble breathing, and asked him, "Are these the guys who attacked you?"

Casey sucked in a shallow breath and slowly nodded.

Off in the distance, sirens were blaring. The first responders would be there in minutes, maybe only seconds. Kelly reached into the coat pockets of the second man, and pulled out a cell phone. He recognized it as Casey's cell phone, he turned to Casey and held it out to him to take. Casey did, and pocketed the phone, and like that, any possible link between these men and the lieutenant they'd assaulted, was no more.

The police showed up and demanded to know what they were doing. Casey and Severide showed their badges and identified themselves as off-duty firemen who heard the shots and came to see if they could assist, but everybody was DOA. The patrolman told them to back up and they'd take it from there. Neither of them had to be told twice. They walked back around the corner and headed to Kelly's car. Casey's legs were starting to feel like jelly and he seated himself on the edge of the car's hood for a minute to pull himself together. Kelly stood over him, and bent down to look him in the eyes, he grabbed Casey's hand and said quietly into his ear, "_That's_ karma."

Casey forced himself to breathe in slowly, and after a few tries he finally got some words out. "Maybe street justice _does_ work sometimes."

"It's over, Casey," Kelly told him. "It's over."

"Yeah," Casey replied, a little less convincingly, "I'm going to be alright now, right?"

"Well it's a good start, isn't it?" Kelly asked as he sat beside him on the hood.

"Yeah, I guess so," Casey said.

"Nobody knows, nobody has to know, nobody _will_ know," Kelly said.

Casey took his phone out and looked at it, then he turned to Kelly, and after a brief hesitation, hugged him. "Thank you."

Severide's quick thinking just saved him a lot of trouble of having to explain to the police how those men had wound up with his phone and why he hadn't reported it stolen. Now as far as anybody knew, there was no connection to Casey and the dead men in that alley. He wouldn't have to answer any questions, he wouldn't have to explain anything to anybody.

"You know if you need to talk to someone I'm available, right?" Kelly asked.

Casey nodded. "I know, and I appreciate it. Thanks."

* * *

That night there was a knock on Casey's front door. He unlocked it, opened it a crack and his eyes widened.

"You eat yet?" Kelly asked as he stood in the doorway with a pizza and a six-pack of beer.

"No," Casey answered as he held the door open, "What're you doing here?"

"Thought you could use some company, was I wrong?" Kelly asked.

Casey shook his head, "No, come on in."

"How're you doing?" Kelly asked as he set the stuff down on the table.

"I don't know...I'm not sure how I'm _supposed_ to be doing," Casey answered.

"Well I guess that's just natural," Severide responded.

Casey shut the door, relocked it and went over to the Squad lieutenant and hugged him. "Thanks for coming, Kelly."

Kelly reciprocated the hug and told Matt, "I love you, you're my best friend, I'd do anything for you, you know that, don't you?"

Casey merely nodded against him.

"I think I'll be okay," he said quietly.

"I know you will," Kelly replied as he pulled back.

"Thanks for saving me," Casey suddenly blurted out. The words caught Kelly off guard and left him flabbergasted.

Kelly looked at Matt and he didn't know what to say. He really hadn't dwelt on the events of that night and the what if's if he hadn't been there when he was and done what he did. It didn't occur to him. He just shook his head and leaned over and kissed Casey on the forehead.

"Come on," he finally said as he patted Casey on the back and then pulled away, "the pizza's gonna get cold."

"Kelly," Casey cleared his throat, and after a short pause, self consciously asked, "Can you stay over tonight?"

Kelly turned back towards Casey and answered, "I wasn't going anywhere."


End file.
